@Saurabh Srivastava - They do charge service tax. You already paid for it at the time of main account recharge. Unless you do a high-value recharge when BSNL gives you "Full Talk-Time".
@xtc - It's a prepaid recharge for BSNL 3G mobile data. A Rs.68 STV (Special Tariff Voucher) recharge gives you data worth Rs. 59.30 and the rest (Rs. 8.70) is service tax, calculated at 14.5% as per the finance ministry's norms. Since service tax is already charged when you recharged your main account, if BSNL were to charge the full MRP of Rs. 68 again (while paying for data using prepaid balance), they'll be overcharging you the service tax on the data voucher. Since you already paid service tax on your prepaid balance earlier, you don't need to pay that again. You only need to pay the extra amount if you pay by cash at a retailer.
So recharging via main account means only Rs. 59.30 is deducted from your balance, although you don't really save anything, because the tax on that Rs. 59.30 was already paid by you earlier (which is why you didn't get the full recharge value for your main account in the first place). However, for some high value recharges, companies do absorb the service tax and give you 'full talk-tme'. With BSNL, a Rs. 200 main account recharge gives you Rs. 200 talk-time, so you're actually getting full value, with no service tax being paid by you (although BSNL pays it from its own pocket). So now, when you recharge an STV from main account, you actually save on the service tax. Kapish? :tmi:
@xtc - It's a prepaid recharge for BSNL 3G mobile data. A Rs.68 STV (Special Tariff Voucher) recharge gives you data worth Rs. 59.30 and the rest (Rs. 8.70) is service tax, calculated at 14.5% as per the finance ministry's norms. Since service tax is already charged when you recharged your main account, if BSNL were to charge the full MRP of Rs. 68 again (while paying for data using prepaid balance), they'll be overcharging you the service tax on the data voucher. Since you already paid service tax on your prepaid balance earlier, you don't need to pay that again. You only need to pay the extra amount if you pay by cash at a retailer.
So recharging via main account means only Rs. 59.30 is deducted from your balance, although you don't really save anything, because the tax on that Rs. 59.30 was already paid by you earlier (which is why you didn't get the full recharge value for your main account in the first place). However, for some high value recharges, companies do absorb the service tax and give you 'full talk-tme'. With BSNL, a Rs. 200 main account recharge gives you Rs. 200 talk-time, so you're actually getting full value, with no service tax being paid by you (although BSNL pays it from its own pocket). So now, when you recharge an STV from main account, you actually save on the service tax. Kapish? :tmi:
